First world problems: Spending too much money on food

MoneyPlate

February 1, 2016

Hello, it’s me.

Its officially one month in of this new year, 2016. Not so new anymore. So how did I do with my handy dandy budget for food this month? Effing horrible, that’s how. I pretty much doubled what I budgeted for and might I add there were no envelopes used at all.

How do real people actually make this work??? I swear we don’t eat that much! Remember my mom gave us $200 as part of our Christmas gift? Yeah, well, that was gone so quick I almost forgot she gave us that money. We pretty much doubled the original budget. Ugh! I don’t even know how. Well, I kind of know how. Sure, we went out to eat at restaurants. Yeah, I admit, I had like 4 beers when I could have (and probably should have) had just one. I also went to Subway quite a few times for my son for his wrestling matches or those all-day wrestling tournaments. I did really well in scrounging up meals with the food we had in the cabinets and fridge. My kids were like, “Mom, why is the fridge so empty?” Of course there was food in there but not as full as they are used to seeing it. Dang. Doubled the budget… I still cant get over it. No, we are not rolling in money like that. I’m a social worker and my husband works part-time (well, 30 hours a week but still part-time). We do feed 2 very active kids – our 14 year old boy is ALWAYS hungry. Still! What the heck!?

What’s the game plan now? It’s a new month and a new start (cue eye-rolling) and I think what I’m looking at is having to budget more fast food like Subway because the reality is that is sometimes that is what is the most practical. I did buy some of the ingredients to make my son’s usual order at Subway at home but he’s picky about stuff like that. We’ll see.

Accountability time. So far I have spent $243.35 on food. That includes a trip to the grocery store for our usual stuff to make dinners, a trip to Starbucks, Papa Murphy’s pizza, and random food at Safeway. Should I just use this like MyFitnessPal and record everything I spend on food. Not much fun for you to read I guess but no one is reading this anyway. I wish people would though. I need some help, some tips, some pointers! Seriously, how do people do this? I know there are families out there that can feed a family of four on the cheap and have some fun, too. But how and how cheap? Pray for me.